Putin Apologist Tucker Carlson Appearing at San Diego “Church”
“When Fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the American flag and carrying a cross” –incorrectly attributed to Sinclair Lewis, though he would have agreed with the sentiment.
A convergence of the hard and soft propaganda elements of America’s right wing is set for April 2 in San Marcos.
The Awaken Church, what I like to call the ministry of Instagram, is using its facilities to facilitate the very worst of Christian Nationalism wrapped in the rhetoric of prosperity. It checks all the boxes of the right wing mentality, from anti-science to misogyny and beyond, in a format that’s half-reality show and half rock concert..
Tucker Carlson, whose commentary is so extreme that Fox News's own lawyers successfully argued it couldn’t be considered slanderous because of its crude and hyperbolic nature, will be appearing at the San Marcos campus of that church on April 2.
“Why shouldn’t I root for Russian? Because I am!” and “Whatever (Putin’s) many faults, (he) has no intention of invading Western Europe.” – Correctly attributed to Tucker Carlson
Lately Tucker has led the charge to blame everybody but Vladimir Putin for the invasion of Ukraine. Clips of his commentary were rebroadcast on Russia 1 and the Kremlin-backed RT television network.
Via the Guardian:
Putin’s bellicose threats towards Ukraine and assembling of up to 190,000 troops on the country’s border, was, Carlson said, a mere “border dispute”. Carlson, who played into Kremlin talking points by declaring that Ukraine was “not a democracy”, launched an apparent attempt to humanize Putin.
“Has Putin ever called me a racist? Has he threatened to get me fired for disagreeing with him? Has he shipped every middle-class job in my town to Russia?” Carlson said as he then recited a rightwing tip sheet of pet causes.
“Did he manufacture a worldwide pandemic that wrecked my business and kept me indoors for two years? Is he teaching my children to embrace racial discrimination? Is he making fentanyl? Is he trying to snuff out Christianity?”
His praise for the Russian autocrat and mirroring of anti-Ukraine propaganda has eased up a bit since the bullets started flying. Unable to deny the reality of tanks rolling and bombs falling, Tucker and other right wing extremists have pivoted to saying none of this would have happened if President Biden wasn’t in office.
The Fox News host has also been unrepentant for his advocacy of “the great replacement” theory which encompasses anti-Semitism, racism, and anti-immigrant sentiment as part of a plot to change the racial composition of the U.S. by methodically enacting policies reducing white Americans' political power.
So why is the nation’s leading Quisling and racist apologist coming to speak at the Awaken Church? The most obvious answer is money, since grift is a central tenet of the disparage America crowd. And look, they’re going for it!
Awaken Church San Diego (formally C3 San Diego) currently has 5 locations, known as campuses: Bressi Ranch, San Marcos, Balboa, Eastlake, and East.
The U.S. organization (there is also a branch in Salt Lake City) has its roots in Australia’s C3, a worldwide charismatic religious organization founded by New Zealand-born Phil Pringle. The organization oversees 594 churches in sixty-four countries, and claims a global membership of more than 100,000.
Australian news accounts refer to C3 as a prosperity preaching mega church. A series of sex scandals rocked the down-under church in 2019, according to 9News.au.com.
Its target is God's hipsters - a following of young faithful hooked on Instagram.
Over three decades Phil Pringle has built an empire including around 400 churches world-wide, and the church claims more than 100,000 members.
And for a man of God, Phil Pringle is incredibly rich. He drives a luxury car and owns a palatial clifftop mansion overlooking the beach at Sydney's Mona Vale. It comes complete with an infinity pool and cost him $3.4 million seven years ago - it's now valued well above $4 million.
Local founders Jurgen and Leanne Mattesius immigrated to the U.S. in 2005 after being told to “plant” a church in San Diego. The name “Awaken” was a branding decision implemented in 2020 via the Prophetic marketing firm
Awaken has overlap with the anti-vaxx/anti-mask movements. America's Frontline Doctors, a group with connections to the Tea Party Patriots and the Council for National Policy, is listed as a resource on their website.
AFLD founder & leader Simone Gold was arrested and charged with violent entry and disorderly conduct after she entered the U.S. Capitol during the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection.
The Frontline group is opposed to measures intended to control the COVID-19 pandemic, such as business closures, stay-at-home orders, and vaccination. The group promotes falsehoods about the COVID-19 pandemic and COVID-19 vaccines.
Documents given to The Intercept show working through another organization (SpeakWithAnMD.com) to hawk fake COVID cures to unsuspecting Americans:
The hacker also provided records of 340,000 prescriptions that Ravkoo has filled between November 3, 2020, and September 11, 2021 — amounting to an estimated $8.5 million in drug costs. Forty-six percent of the prescriptions are for hydroxychloroquine or ivermectin, and another 30 percent are for zinc or azithromycin, two other ineffective medications that the SpeakWithAnMD physicians, who America’s Frontline Doctors claims it trains, prescribe in their Covid-19 consultations.
Traditional sexual identity is very important to the Awaken Church, which holds Champion Nights to encourage women to stand by their man, and Emerge Men Conferences to validate male dominance.
They’re big on what’s known in the trade as Spiritual Bypassing to address mental health or addiction issues. Instead of working through a person’s emotions or confronting unresolved issues, they are simply dismissed through spiritual explanations, allowing problems to fester without any true resolution.
And, of course, the more members tithe to the Awaken Church, the more they’ll see health and wealth… they promise.
The Awaken Church, and its related congregations, have found a niche in modern day widespread alienation driven by an economy that worships individual wealth over the wealth of the commons.
They provide a modernist looking space where people believe they’re filling the void inside themselves even as they are being exploited to serve the interests of those who envision an authoritarian regime as the solution to the inherent messiness of democracy.
Tucker Carlson, who originally hails from La Jolla, is the perfect fit for Awaken, providing celebrity validation for an ideological vehicle wrapped in promises of redemption. .
Please follow @AwakenExposed for day-to-day updates on this reactionary organization. (Thanks for your research!)
Email me at WritetoDougPorter@Gmail.com